Wednesday, 12 June 2013

Indietracks interview #13: Lardpony

Straight outta Derby, Lardpony are making a return to the first team squad after a few seasons out with babies, solo projects, and beards. They write pop songs that are so clever they could teach A-Level biology in a secondary school. Sam from A Layer Of Chips kindly interviewed them for our blog.

You're finally playing Indietracks again; about time isn't it?
It has been many years since our last appearance! BUT - since we were disbanded for the 2009 - 2012 events, somewhat inevitable. We're delighted that we've managed to sneak back onto the bill though as it was a driving force behind our reunion, that we might be able to play at Indietracks again!

Lardpony have recently got back together. Why, and why the hiatus?
Well, we were torn apart by adult responsibilities. The Lardpony Classic(TM) "couple unit" of Nathan (bass) and Mandy (keyboard) had a couple of babies and the logistics of organising childcare for every practice, gig and recording session were too much hassle. Eventually though, the desire to play live with a band began to nag at me again and I reasoned that starting a new band from scratch would be an odd thing to do since I'd already found the people I wanted to share my life with (pause for retching). We stole our new keyboard player, Swap, from Nathan's other band TheMakingOf (who played Indietracks in 2012) and lurched back into action with a satisfying crunching sound.

Have the band played festivals before?
Only Indietracks 2008, but I feel like it would have been a struggle for any other festival to live up to that experience. It was "the sunny year" - anyone else who was there might still have a bit of a residual tan. We played in the church, which was relentlessly hot. It was excellent.

You've been to Indietracks as punters before - how does it compare to other festivals?
My experience of other festivals has been at the other end of the scale, somewhat - I went to Reading festival five times between 1998 and 2002 and watched it slowly become more and more swamped with Limp Bizkit fans who were only there to set things on fire. That hasn't happened at Indietracks yet.

Who are you looking forward to seeing at Indietracks?
Bis! I've been a big fan since their early singles and we played with their (brilliant) other band Data Panik a few years ago. Helen Love, too! Of the newer bands, I've been looking forward to seeing Good Grief for ages.

What should we expect from Lardpony at Indietracks?
We've got a lot of new stuff! What with having a new band member, we found it was more fun working on new stuff together rather than going over too many old songs. That's not to say there won't be a couple of familiar tunes, though. All of our new songs seem to be quite fast.

What's coming up for the band? New record?
We've recorded seven new songs that we're hopefully going to finish mixing very soon, and then we'll attempt to work out what to do with them. We're quietly hopeful that maybe somebody will want to put them out. Or some of them, at least. We've never actually released a single, so it would be quite entertaining to have a debut single out 10 years (and one lengthy hiatus) after our first gig. The first of the new songs will be on the Indietracks compilation! I've also got a new Vom Vorton album recorded that I'll be releasing soon, hopefully in time to drag a few copies over to Indietracks and thrust them upon people...

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Indietracks is an annual indiepop festival that takes place at a 1950s steam railway in Derbyshire, UK every July.

The festival has been running since 2007. Bands playing in previous years have included Camera Obscura, Edwyn Collins, Teenage Fanclub, Veronica Falls, The Wedding Present, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The Pastels, Allo Darlin', White Town, The Hidden Cameras, Art Brut, Still Corners, The Vaselines, Summer Camp, Emmy The Great, The Primitives, Bis, Slow Club, Jeffrey Lewis, Helen Love, Au Revoir Simone and hundreds more artists from across the globe.